The proposed Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act is now a law after President Duterte signed Republic Act (RA) No.11642 last Jan. 6, 2022.
The full title of the new law reads, "An Act strengthening alternative child care by providing for an administrative process of domestic adoption, reorganizing for the purpose the inter-country adoption board (ICAB) into the National Authority for Child Care (NACC), amending for the purpose Republic Act No. 10165, repealing Republic Act No. 8552, and Republic Act No. 9523, and appropriating funds therefor."
"This act shall provide for and allow simpler and inexpensive domestic administrative adoption proceedings and shall streamline services for alternative child care," the objective of the law read.
The 43-page law provides for the creation of the NACC, which shall exercise all powers and functions relating to alternative child care including declaring a child legally available for both domestic administrative adoption and inter-country adoption, foster care, kinship care, family-like care, or residential care.
According to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the measure will ensure that the best interest of Filipino children, particularly those in need of alternative care, will be immediately addressed through foster care. Permanent families will be found through an administrative process of legal adoption.
The law defines "alternative child care" as the provision of planned substitute parental care to a child who is orphaned, abandoned, neglected, or surrendered, by a child-caring or child-placing agency.
Under Section 5 of RA No.11642, the ICAB is reorganized to a one-stop, quasi-judicial agency on alternative child care known as the NACC. The NACC is attached to the DSWD.
"All duties, functions, and responsibilities of the ICAB, the DSWD, and those of other government agencies relating to alternative child care and adoption are hereby transferred to the NACC," the section read.
The NACC shall be run by a council, to be composed of the DSWD secretary as ex offcio chairperson and six other members who are to be appointed by the President for a non-renewable term of six years.
The appointees shall be composed of one psychiatrist or psychologist, two lawyers who shall have at least the qualifications of a Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge, one registered social worker, and two representatives from non-government organizations (NGOs) engaged in child-caring and child-placing activity.
Section 8 says that the NACC shall ensure that the petitions, and all other matters involving alternative child care, including the issuance of Certification Declaration a Child Legally Available for Adoption (CDCLAA), and the process of domestic and inter-country adoption, foster care, kinship care, family-like care, or residential care "are simple, expeditious, and inexpensive, and will redound to the best interest of the child involved".
"Towards this end, the NACC Council shall Act as the policy-making body and when convened as such, as an en banc appeals committee for contested denials of petitions issued by the executive director or the deputy director for services," it added.
Meanwhile, the NACC Secretariat shall, among other functions, set standards and guidelines on adoption including pre-and post-legal adoption services; ensure that inter-country adoption will not be pursued until all possible domestic placement of the child has been exhausted; establish clear programs to keep children with their biological families whenever possible; and assess the progress and identify gaps in the implementation of this Act and come up with policy recommendations.